


Being in This World

by softcorevulcan



Series: A part of the world [3]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Illyria Character Study, Illyria getting used to caring about people, Illyria learning how to be part of the world, Pining Illyria, Pining Wesley, but barely, canon-divergent, nearly everyone is bisexual, onesided Illyria/Faith, or canon compliant, wesley lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 06:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17544296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softcorevulcan/pseuds/softcorevulcan
Summary: Illyria tries to dance, Wesley ponders on some moments he's spent with Illyria getting used to her new life, and Illyria tries to flirt with Faith because she's trying to find something good about being in this world.With some undertones of Illyria and Wesley pining, whether or not they realize that is what they're doing.





	1. To see her

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a self indulgent series where Wesley doesn’t die, there’s more Illyria, and more fluffy domesticity of the gang just living life and exploring it. 
> 
> I wish I’d gotten to see a television season 6 where Wesley survived... The idea that he is a man that has finally completely fallen to the lowest point he can live through, and Illyria is a god that has fallen to the lowest point in her existence, and that in building her up into being able to function in this new life, maybe he can also build himself back up into someone who can survive, and they can both help each other learn how to heal and live. But no, I’m not going to get that. 
> 
> This is self indulgent to the maximum so: characters are very flawed and imperfect, it's all about that character exploration even if it’s messy, tropes galore if it's fun to explore. So I guess… really indulgent character study. Also I’m running away with my headcanons, notably that Faith, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, and Illyria all being bi (And probably Lorne, Spike, and Angel too but they don't get much focus in this). Have fun. 
> 
> Warnings: Wesley and Illyria are kind of toxic in parts of this. They're very much still in the enemies-to-tolerate-each-other levels of late season 5. Potentially dub-con warning regarding Illyria’s behavior.
> 
> EDIT: Added a second chapter.
> 
> Expect more stories in the same universe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illyria tries to dance.

One day, Wesley thinks, he’s going to look at Illyria and stop seeing the shadow of Fred.

Rationally, he knows that it isn’t Fred. She’s -

But, the thing is, for all of Illyria that is alien, her skin still feels like Fred, sometimes, in the places where it turns soft.

In the moments when Illyria acts something closer to resembling human, as she learns more about the world and grows, as a person - sometimes she makes a gesture, almost smiles, or twitches her hands, or some other action, and it reminds him just slightly, of Fred.

He told Illyria to stop it. To stop digging back into what tiny pieces are left of Fred, the memories Illyria stole and permanently violates - will always possess because Illyria is stuck with them the same way she is stuck with the body - and to try to make her own decisions about how she wants to move and act and feel. Illyria doesn’t ever admit it out loud, but Wesley knows that sometimes, she is scared.

Scared and unsure and desperately lost in this new world, this new existence where she will never be the thing she once was. And he knows, even though she lies and acts as if it is not what she is falling back on, that sometimes she uses those memories she has stored inside from the old owner of her form to make some estimation of what to do in these new situations.

Illyria is trying to learn how to dance. It’s humorous, in a way, the way only watching something alien attempt to blend in can be. Illyria, Wesley thinks, doesn’t even particularly want to belong - she maybe, just wants to understand. She is stuck in this world, and she has chosen them - particularly human, in Wesley’s case - as her guide.

She could have wandered off and decided to take her cues from some group of demons. So, Wesley supposes, it’s a small blessing that she puts up with them instead. Puts up with humans and their weakness, and their lack of the several tentacles she used to have, and their unnecessarily large pleasure at eating something that tastes good, and their preoccupation with manners which often means Illyria cannot just attack others to get what she wants. At least, she can’t if she wants to eventually integrate into society as something even partially resembling functional.

And, at the moment, she seems to prefer the idea of functioning within the kind of world Wesley and Angel and Gunn and Spike and Lorne inhabit, rather than the one other monsters do.

Again, small blessings. She could’ve resumed her indiscriminate mass murderer tendencies. Instead, she’s just killing demons, for the moment. Practically a force for good. Hopefully, she’ll grow to find enough value in it to want to keep being a hero, even once she understands humans better.

He knows humans aren’t always particularly redeemable creatures.

Illyria has called this place a hell, before. Multiple times.

So has he.

 

\---

 

Illyria is trying to dance, because she saw someone else do it, and music is playing, and she wishes to experience it. She wishes to know why it is appealing, if it is pleasurable, what feelings it evokes. If it is worthwhile. Despite all the changes she has had to become accustomed to, since her entry into this world, she is determined to at least make the most of her new experiences. If she’s going to be stuck in this hell dimension they call Earth, then she’s going to full well do everything there is that’s worth doing within it.

She used to conquer worlds, change whole histories, see uncountable multitudes of wonders. If she is going to be marooned and weak in some strange land, she is going to get as much of those old habits, or something somewhat akin to them, back into her life as possible.

Without an army, without the ability to traverse back and forth across the expanse of time, without her hulking body of vicious power to eviscerate and frighten unending masses - she might as well still get the wonders bit. The small slices of life that might make it worthwhile, worth sticking around until the next tomorrow, and the next.

The little moments that might give her some pleasure in this prison she is now stuck in.

So Illyria tries to move her body to the beat of a song - something Faith might have chosen to dance to. And she has no idea what to do, so she copies the other swaying of bodies she saw earlier.

 

\---

 

They’re in another city, most of the gang save for Spike, who had wanted to take a detour to Buffy-hell.

Angel came with Wesley and Gunn, because he was utterly not ready for Buffy-hell after the losses of the year, unwilling or unable to handle another can of pain-worms getting ripped back open.

A few months back, as usual, another setback - or nightmare - had occurred, depending on how a person might like to view it. As if the elongated mistake of Wolfram & Hart hadn’t been enough, Angel had managed to, through the best intentions, make another big one. After getting back from the hell dimension of the year he’d failed his way into, and recovering enough to be of some use to the cause again, they’d had the strength, maybe, for helping one slayer that could relate to their messy track records. Facing Faith was probably a whole measure easier, and in this case coming with the excuse of doing useful work, than facing Buffy and the memories of all that old screwed potential likely would have been.

Lorne was trying his hand at Vegas again - and Wesley was keeping his phone charged and close, in case the demon got kidnapped or manipulated or trapped or something again, and needed rescuing. The demon was really, for good reason, sick of them and their dangerous lifestyles for a good long while. That’s what he’d said, at least, in marginally kinder words. Wesley just hoped Lorne managed to avoid that kind of luck on his own, regardless. It seemed like just generally, they were all - anyone who’d been part of the gang or even just crossed paths with them - a little predisposed to crashing headfirst into turmoil.

They were currently staying at a house Faith was holding, with her little gang of mini-slayers who were still in need of some amount of training. With Dawn and Andrew milling about as well, pretending to be watchers.

Ha.

As soon as Wesley had arrived, Faith had pulled him into an awkward embrace, that she had plowed through despite noticing was awkward, and then immediately set him to work researching some books she’d had Andrew get from local libraries and magic shops. The slayers had some kind of unseen force - possibly demon - giving them trouble. The thing had run into Buffy, in some other city, and promptly her slayer strength had been sapped for about twenty four hours. Then later, here in Oregon, at Faith’s current residence, some similar fantom monster had run into her and thrown down in a skirmish. It had gotten away - invisible, and so they’d lost track of it - and Faith had come out fine. But he was here to figure out if it was the same thing that had de-powered Buffy for a day, and to make sure they could find a way to stop it before the thing did something like that again, or worse, to the slayers here.

During a lapse of down time - for those people at the house who had no pressing matters to attend to - Andrew had taken an idiotic shining to Illyria, thinking she was just some hot strange looking slayer-like girl, and tried to teach her to dance. Dawn had found the idea fun, and joined in, turning on the kind of noise that would be at home in a club.

Illyria had stopped mid-trying-to-dance, observed Dawn dancing like she was into far dirtier things than Wesley was sure her older sister would’ve liked knowing, and then the once-god-king had turned her attention toward Andrew and pushed him abruptly away and rather harshly into a wall. “Stop making sexual advances,” she’d stated plainly, looking at him like she was seeing into the organs underneath. She was probably just reading into his feelings. She liked doing that, being nosy.

Andrew had reasonably, been utterly bewildered - and a little scared - what with unexpected god-strength slamming him off balance for no apparent reason. Wesley could understand, he’d been at the end of a hit like that, from Faith most recently, and it was not a pleasant thing to be surprised with.

“Illyria,” Wesley had said warningly, reminding her without so many words, again, to make an effort to avoid hurting fragile humans. Just because Spike took a beating, for science, technically willingly, did not mean everyone was fair game for a smacking.

Especially from someone as strong as her.

She had glowered back at him, distinctly Illyria-eque, then looked down at Andrew crumpled against the wall with what have been contempt and disgust. He could hear her inner monologue, it was so predictable, probably rambling internally about what an insect the human was, not even worth her notice, etcetera. She really could be a broken record, at times.

Wesley shouldn’t mention that to her, she might ask him what it meant. Then they’d be arguing with each other all day.

Illyria had a knack for taking one small thing from Wesley and blowing it out of proportion - and apparently ignoring her did no good, she just went around quietly infuriated that Wesley had ceased contact, and lashed out at such development by burdening anyone else within a reasonable vicinity with bizarre lines of questioning, terrifying accusations that felt like barely veiled death threats, and worst of all - she spent her spare moments devising a harsher argument to hurl at Wesley once they bothered trying to speak again.

The last time he’d been fed up with her - they’d been at his apartment, of course - she’d given him nearly a full day of peace. She’d gone off and sparred with Spike that day, instead of bothering Wesley. She’d even questioned Angel on the nature of a soul, and on “what could possibly make humans different than the demons here, like vampires, so weak in their own right? You are all so weak, what difference does a soul make?”

Then finally, they’d both been back in his damned apartment, and he’d decided on civility, quietly reading at his desk, and Illyria had come up to him with a printed out piece of paper with a list on it. A list she had unfolded, thrust right in front of his face, covering his view of the book, and as soon as he’d glanced up to meet her gaze, she’d yanked him up by the arm and made him stand before her.

Then she’d gone on a tirade about how his ordering her about fell within the definition of abuse. She’d carried on for over an hour, pointing at bullet points on the list as evidence to support each one of her little remarks, all stated as absolutes, heavy as the sharp jabs she sent Spike across the room with during the day. And, of course, Wesley had blinked back, exasperated and tired, figuring this might as well happen. Then he’d waited, patiently because he was too tired to do anything else, until she finally paused long enough that he imagined she wanted an actual response. And he’d swiftly dug right into her back.

“Illyria, throwing me against a wall and breaking two of my mugs last night might also qualify, and making implied threats.” When she’d tried to go on - admittedly, she was maybe, a touch, justified about the whole emotional cruelty element - he’d thrown himself down onto the couch, completely ignoring the tenseness to her stance that suggested potential danger, and continued.

She, of course, mentioned how he should say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, since he’s trying to get her to, and how ordering her around like a child constituted unduly controlling behavior.

“Well of course its controlling! I’m your guide, I tell you what to do because you ask what’s normal, what can be done. It’s not as if you have to listen, you could certainly walk out of that door wherever you wanted. And when I tell you to call me when you go with Spike or Gunn or someone, at a certain time, it’s not because I’m - I’m making sure you’re safe, that you have a way to change your plans if you no longer feel comfortable, or content, because god knows you might go off on someone if you feel like you can’t escape - “

“What are you intending to imply -”

“Well it's not as if you haven’t tried to rip Angel’s head off because you thought he was going to kill you again - for fuck’s sake, you were just at the Chinese place, you -”

“Well he should have told me upon our change of plans what was -”

“People don’t do that! They don’t have to - you’re still getting used to the norms of this world, but I’m telling you, when you go out with friends, and it isn’t because you’ve been ordered on a work related hunt, it’s usually not for anything nefarious to your own life.”

Illyria often preferred to glower. She crossed her arms and stared down at him, at once intimidating and utterly ignorable. Certainly, she could have killed him. But she never did.

And even if she tried, what did Wesley have to lose? Not much. The world had more to lose - or maybe it’d be better off, when he eventually left it.

Either way, not exactly a big deal if Illyria reached the verge of wanting to rip off his head.

“Sometimes they do seek to destroy or hurt me, Spike -”

“Spike literally spars with you, on purpose, because it’s a planned event you both agreed on, and he only pounces on you in that damned training space besides -”

“Angel has spoken of eliminating me.”

“We’re getting sidetracked. My point was, I ask you to keep in contact with me so that someone knows where you are in case you need help. It’s not a control thing, it’s a safety thing, especially given our line of work. And your - unique - status.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you order me about. You do not have the right.”

“Well you could ignore me, if you don’t like the way I explain things to you, but then you tried that today and couldn’t even last a full twenty four hours -”

“I simply - wish for you to find a way to explain yourself that is more respectful.” They’d been talking circles, Wesley wonders if she picked up the bad habit by watching him, or if she just chose to implement it on him as retribution for his own, admittedly bitchy, behavior towards her at times.

He couldn’t help it, cruel as it obviously was - at least when Illyria was giving an honest go at it, at trying to fit into this world. She took away Fred. He couldn’t stop seeing that. Even when he knew how much she needed him. How much she didn’t choose this, any more than he had.

“You people keep making a point of how important consent and politeness are - yet you utilize very little of either when debating each other -”

“I told you, Illyria, men don’t always say it that way because it’s implied, when they’re friends, that they mean it affectionately -”

“Then why do you not interpret my words affectionately, I say them sufficiently when compared to the -”

“Because it’s my job to help you get used to this, and with other people, being so rude is not going to go over well.”

“I am not rude.”

It’s like arguing with a brick wall.

They’d gone on like that, not quite actually saying what they really maybe meant to or ought to, nearly the whole night. The next day at work Wesley had been a zombified mess. That morning, after a night of Illyria and him pretending they could coexist in such a small space - a test of patience at pretending that led to another broken mug, Illyria giving Wesley a bruise when she’d pushed him onto his mattress altogether too brutally in her haste, a neighbor yelling through the wall that he’d call the cops if it kept up when Illyria started shrieking at Wesley with her cold little voice, and then definitely the noise of another neighbor fleeing the building when Wesley had shouted at Illyria for grabbing what remained of his whiskey and chucking the bottle out of a window and at the cars parked on the street down below.

Wesley hoped his landlord didn’t know they were responsible for the beeping car that wouldn’t shut up at four in the morning.

Now, Illyria, maybe, was restraining her more outlandish reactions to him, because they were in a stranger’s home with strange people and she was at least, sort of, getting the hang of the social norms of being respectful in what she considered ‘public’.

Which happened to be in her mind, Wesley thinks, anywhere that is not alone with him.

“I am not interested in this,” Wesley was sure she wanted to use some dehumanizing, derogatory phrase, “man.”

“I can tell,” Wesley said plainly, used to this now. “All you have to do, when you aren’t interested, is say that.”

She tilted her head, staring at him.

“That you aren’t interested. You don’t have to push them.” Wesley thought about it, as Andrew pulled himself back up into something resembling standing, although now visibly curled into himself. “But if they don’t take your rejection as an answer, leave. Come find me, or whoever you’re with. They’ll deal with them.” Another thought crossed his mind. “Unless they’re demons, then feel free to hit them.”

“No hurting humans,” she summarized, voice flat, no doubt replaying the last dozen times he’d reminded her, now sounding past sick of the phrase.

She turned back to Andrew as if nothing in particular had occurred. “I apologize for hitting you.”

“Oh,” he mumbled. “It’s uh, it’s okay.”

She nodded curtly, obviously satisfied. “I would like to reiterate that I am uninterested in your advances, cease them.”

“Okay.” Wesley didn’t like the boy much, not much at all in fact - a poor excuse for someone calling themselves a watcher, even compared with actual fresh out of the academy ones. Andrew probably couldn’t even handle a single real, genuine, fight without a slayer. He’d probably die. That said, Wesley probably hadn’t started out much better, and the guy at least had some knack for research… but still. Learning from past experiences, from the only living examples of functioning ones - he and Rupert Giles - the man needed some practical training, desperately. Or else one day, Faith or Buffy was going to have Andrew as another casualty hanging upon them. Another loss of life that they felt partial responsibility for.

Wesley didn’t think the boy knew what to make of Illyria, evidently not the cool girl type Andrew had presumed her to be. Like Faith, but leaning closer to unhinged, and with none of the almost-sweet sometimes camraderous banter. Just, all freaky creepy power and desire to pummel things with it. And a glare that could freeze the sun.

“I wish to resume dancing.”

Dawn had been sitting in the sidelines, glancing at something or other, staying out of the confrontation and kindly pretending no one had acted bizarrely. No doubt a trait she’d honed and perfected growing up in the weird environments demon hunters, regardless of individual group, apparently cultivated.

She smiled, bouncing back up from the recliner, and changing the song to another one she seemed fond of. “C’mon,” she gestured Illyria toward her, “I’ll show you how, and I won’t try to feel you up doing it.”

Wesley would have left the room, to find somewhere quieter to translate. But as reserved as Illyria was being, she could pull apart the two humans engaging with her like they were softened butter.

Dawn, as before, had danced like she wanted to do very naughty things to Illyria, as she grinded up close. Smiling all the while, bright and friendly. Thankfully, Illyria seemed to actually be put at ease by it, instead of jumping straight down her usual route of suspicion.

Maybe it was the age. Dawn, he thought, was probably an adult, or close enough now - along with most of the mini-slayers - but she obviously wasn’t as hardened by the struggles of life as Wesley, or his closest friends and Illyria’s acquaintances, anywhere near yet.

Illyria had moved her body like a puppet on ropes being guided by a novice, and then after several painstakingly bizarre moments, had readjusted and started swaying in mirror to Dawn’s movements.

Entirely provocative, and yet more sure and certain and confident than Dawn could ever hope to be. A god, who saw herself better than any other gods or creatures or things, swaying her body and grinding and moving in the air like a succubus who knew all prizes already belonged to her.

It reminded Wesley, if anything, of Faith.

Nothing like Fred. Not even a little.

Then another song had come on. Still something to dance to, but gentler. A new rhythm and beat, and Illyria was getting used to it. Getting the point of dancing.

Wesley could see, when he looked up from his page, Illyria’s expression change. Her eyes fluttering closed, her body letting go of the robotic movement of not knowing what to do, of the memorized pattern of copying Dawn’s more in sync gestures. Illyria let her muscles relax, let them wobble out and shift and follow some internal instinct, instead of expectation. She was letting go, getting lost in a beat like a person is supposed to.

When she gave up control to her feelings, her body moved clumsy but confident, sure of who it was.

It moved like Fred.

All gentle sway and too grand arm movements, all joy and activity getting lost in the noise. Silly, and charming. And just like the woman he loved.

Wesley had to look away, then.

He collects his things and drifts out of the room while they’re in the middle of a song, as Andrew gets the courage to move closer to Illyria again - probably because she almost resembles something human, moving like that.

Wesley is glad no one notices him leave.

 

\---

 

Later, Wesley asks her to not do that again.

“It was not on purpose,” Illyria responds, meeting his stare with an equal amount of conviction.

She does not say sorry, but Wesley thinks perhaps that is what she means to imply, as she looks into him. Maybe it's all just wishful thinking, on his part.

He nods. “If you want to experience things, I completely understand that.” He suspects, she doesn’t understand, not completely, and that she knows that he doesn’t. “But I would prefer it if you build your own new memories as you did, instead of relying on what is left of her, as a crutch.”

As some small mercy to him, perhaps, Illyria does not delve into one of her brilliantly long lived tirades, the kind that would keep them thrashing around a sensitive point neither would fully voice, for hours. Instead, she gives him a stiff nod in return.

It’s her way of trying to be kind.

He thinks, maybe, she really didn’t mean it. That she really did not intend to bring up Fred.

That it really was a mistake, and that she would have avoided digging up the pain if she’d known.

They both are always dancing around it. The point.

Wesley isn’t a god like she once was, and so he doesn’t have an ego quite big enough to be convinced he’s absolutely sure about what that point is. But he thinks that his idea of what it is, is probably quite close to the mark.

He blames her. And she can’t do anything about it, even if for some reason, she wanted to.

Neither of them can.

 

\---

 

And so when they go to a bar, the whole lot of them, with Faith and the handful of slayers that are old enough to come too - and Dawn, because apparently she refuses to be left out of the good time - Wesley knows he can’t do anything about what he feels.

Before they left, Illyria had decided she wanted to come along as well. Faith, for some godforsaken reason, had been flirting a storm with Illyria throughout the day beforehand, and Illyria had set her mind to participating in the experience of going out 'for a good time'.

And so, she’d observed the various slayers, and Dawn, getting ready to go out, and then had proceeded to attempt to dress in a similar fashion. Faith had given Illyria free reign to her closet, and Illyria had wandered down the stairs and into the living room several minutes after, to bother Wesley with questioning.

The once-god had found a black silk slip of a dress, and put it on. She had no bra. Wesley raised his brow but decided not to bother her about it. Strictly speaking, if she was trying to fit into the social norm, it's not as if all the women upstairs were wearing one out tonight either. Wesley had caught sight of Faith, and she sure as hell wasn’t - the slayer had been wearing a tight leather crop top that left her stomach exposed and revealed pretty much everything of the curves underneath, and tight jeans that clung to her ass. She had been strutting across the living room, past Wesley’s books and Angel and Gunn working on blade sharpening, shouting about where the hell was her lipstick.

Illyria, in the middle of her beeline to Wesley, had stopped suddenly, and stared down at a pair of long socks resting beside a chair. The socks had little lion and bear and elephant faces on them in patterns, and they looked soft. She gazed at them as if they had some special, immaculate quality, and then bent down to grab them. Upon seizing them, she regarded the socks, maybe seeing something that no human could about them, and then sat down in the chair to tug them on.

Upon her conclusion, she had given the area a second glance around, distracted from whatever mission to tirade Wesley with words had originally possessed her. After examining the area with a careful, slow gaze, she’d struck her hand out and snatched a single bright green barrette that had apparently been lying on the coffee table.

“It glows,” she remarked, to herself, still in the midst of observing the item she held.

Then, she’d gotten back up to her feet, and finished the mission to reach Wesley.

“How do I wear this?” She’d asked immediately, one hand snapping the barrette open and close in wonder.

“Why do you want it?” He’d replied, then instantly regretted whatever fleeting feeling had possessed him to curiosity.

“The girl who is made of green light, this is hers.” Illyria had stated, clearly believing that those words would make everything clear to him. They did not. “The girl who is made of brilliant life, Dawn. She is worthy of me. At least, more worthy of notice to me than most individuals here. The older slayer, Faith, is also notable, which is why I have chosen to put on the clothing that belongs to her. If I am to flirt, I should like to act in the way the people closest to my equals might do so.”

She looked down at the barrette in her hand, then forced it into Wesley’s.

“Put it on me.” He complied, as there was no point in starting an argument when there was still so much time left for that later in the day. There were still several hours left, Wesley needed to conserve strength for the inevitable blowout. No doubt it would be excessive, as Illyria often got insecure upon trying new things, especially new things involving having to treat humans as something resembling equal. It was almost inevitable that at some later point tonight, Illyria was going to bitch to him about how disgustingly inferior everyone and everything was, and then get bored, and then decide to humor and entertain herself by trying to tear him a new one.

Not that Illyria could infer that such an inevitably was coming. She was painfully unaware of herself, at times. Or perhaps just resolute about ignoring her flaws. And my, didn’t she have a lot of those now, so fallen from the grace of what she once was, from her perspective.

Wesley figured, being human - or something closer to it now than she had been - was just hard. It was just part of being in this world. As much as Illyria hated it, that particular aspect wasn’t about to change any time soon. It might be the only constant.

He clipped back a piece of hair on the right side of her face, wondering if she could tell that the look was a bit lacking without another barrette, or maybe, a bit unbalanced, seeing as how she had parted her hair in the middle. He was suddenly reminded of Cordelia, how she might have pointed out something like that.

He waited for whatever tirade Illyria had been prepared to go onto, but instead she stood there, eyes stark and focused for a moment as if she were ready to speak, and then they crinkled up just slightly, a thought overcoming her. She nodded curtly. “Thank you,” and then Illyria strode off toward the direction Faith had barreled off to.

More minutes later, Faith had strutted back to the living room, a jean jacket in her arms, perhaps debating if the temperature outside warranted bringing it, and stood in front of the three men to ask if they wanted to come.

Angel had stood at her arrival, who knows why, because it only encouraged her. “I’m not taking no for an answer,” she teased, leaning closer than most people did towards Angel, except for maybe Wesley - which didn’t say anything about Wesley, at all.

Like, the fact he had as little fear for a vampire, this vampire, as a slayer did. A slayer who might be down for bouncing up and down on said vampire, if the vampire didn’t have a soul curse surrounding good times - despite, well, Wesley not exactly having that whole supernatural-strength thing to protect him should someone get blood-lust or lose a damn mind and go all thrashy-dangerous. Whereas Faith did.

“You need a serious distraction from all that brooding you get up to. All of you do, in fact.” Faith crossed her arms, leaning dangerously into Wesley’s personal space now too, as Angel had subtly scooted toward his friend, perhaps in attempt to use Wesley as a personal shield. It was all for naught, apparently, because Faith was perfectly content just making the two of them uncomfortable at once. Two birds, one stone, and all that. “C’mon, just come. We aren’t going to make any headway on the ghost-demon-thing tonight anyway - no idea where it is, remember? And the stuff Wesley ordered from Florida to try to recreate the conditions that whammed Buffy isn’t supposed to get here for another two days, so it’s not like we can do any testing now. Much as you’d like to, watcher-boy. So look in a mirror and try to get that sleepless for three days look washed off enough to stand a chance in hell of picking up chicks, and get ready. We’re leaving in half an hour, and you’re all coming.”

This place was absolutely great. Phenomenal. Instead of a nightly shout-out with Illyria until inevitably walking into a workplace where Gunn looked at Wesley like he was both the worst person in the world, and the best purest-oh-god-please-forgive-me chance Gunn might have at redemption, they all got to crash on couches in a cramped living room and endure Faith bossing them around like she was Illyria’s wilder hot blooded god-cousin with a special vengeance specifically saved just for men.

Particularly, men like Wesley, who had told her what to do and had tried to play her like a puppet for a super-organization she was likely quite glad had been blown up. As for men like Angel and Gunn? She was just happy to look at them like meat she’d be delighted to tear up and devour, then kick to the curb the next morning with a throw of ‘It was a good time, see ya later.’

Angel did, actually, go to the bathroom to freshen up a little. Wesley wondered, if Angel tried looking in the mirror in a moment of forgetfulness. If he ever happens to. Wesley knows sometimes he rolls over upon waking, and in his thoughtlessness, thinks the glimpse of curve he catches in his periphery is Fred. It hurts.

It’s not like he even saw the soft curve of Fred sleeping, very much, when she was alive. Only a few times. Mostly, after some night of working when she’d crashed at the Hyperion, dozed off in the middle of something or other she’d been staying up late for and been in the middle of, body collapsed awkwardly, on the edge of waking up at the first loud noise.

Actually, it wasn’t so different from the circumstance Illyria often was in, when Wesley did make the momentary misidentification.

Illyria rarely went to bed like a well adjusted human being perhaps ought to. Not that he set a very well adjusted example for her. She usually didn’t even collapse into a mattress or couch cushion, or get thrown onto one - like Wesley did. She just kept running and functioning until suddenly she got woozy. Then she glared at nothing, in response to her frustration with it all, and then she’d try to figure out what to do without Wesley, if he was already asleep.

Usually, when he woke up, she was slouched in a chair, or set at the table with her head pressed upon it awkwardly. Occasionally, she was on his bed on top of the covers, laying like an uncomfortable corpse. Probably cold, but too stubborn to cover herself with a blanket, and so contorted with trying to keep herself warm. Like Fred, also just a sudden noise away from jolting awake.

But actually, thankfully, very little like Fred.

If Illyria does have any good, Fred-like traits - ones that she isn’t purposely dragging to the surface to hurt Wesley and sometimes others - then Wesley hopes those are just traits she has gravitated to, is developing, because they were so inherently impressionably wonderful that some pieces of them carried over into Wesley and Gunn and Angel. So now Illyria sees those aspects, and just sees them as parts of being a person, innate parts, and so instinctively integrates them in her own way.

Not that Illyria doesn’t have redeemable aspects of her own. Though, Wesley would rather not dwell on the task of trying to acknowledge them.

In the midst of Gunn wondering if he should put on a different shirt, Illyria weaves back into the room and stands in front of Wesley, now with one of Faith’s leather coats on, large on Illyria’s frame. Wesley supposes, her complete lack of hesitance is a decent quality. “What is the preferred style of dress to wear when attempting to court a partner for sex? The women preparing upstairs are wearing very little, yet Faith has put on a jacket. Will this jacket improve my chance of success on the outing?”

Of course.

Of course Illyria would be five inches away from him, staring up at him with determination, asking him this. With her slender, very Fred-like feet, still snuggly and warm in ridiculous animal print socks hugging onto her. With a silly green barrette in her hair, and now Faith’s dark red lipstick painting her lips. Wearing a jacket more in line with the usual look of her armour, holding the sleeves of it harsh and tentative, ready to rip the article off of her should it prove to be an obstacle to her goals.

Which apparently included having sex.

“Excuse me?”

She was not, apparently, in the mood to put up with his bafflement or his slowing down of the momentum she was running on. “Should I wear this coat or not, Wesley?”

“What do you mean sex? Are you trying to get laid tonight?”

Wesley presumed Illyria often filtered his words out, confidently ignoring them, in a manner quite alike to the way Buffy and Faith tuned him out when they first met him. When he had been trying, so hard, to infer guidance. To be helpful. He was only trying to be helpful.

He was so awfully bad at being helpful. It was amazing he didn’t learn.

“Answer me.”

“The jacket is fine. Now explain to me.”

To an outsider, maybe all they did was order each other about and hope sometimes something stuck on occasion. Gunn had wandered off to change into a clean shirt, returned, and was now certainly staring at them, from his safe distance at the kitchen entryway.  

“Faith said we are going out to ‘have fun, and hopefully get laid.’ I asked what she meant, she elaborated. I was already intent to observe the behavior Faith and her comrades intend to participate in tonight. I think it would be interesting to also pursue the experience they are after. They seem to imply it is worthwhile, and as I am trapped in this body, and many of you people have implied such activity is satisfactory, I should like to determine that for myself. Perhaps it will be - fun.”

Wesley might have been gawping.

But mostly he was coping with an enormity of mental flashes barraging him at once - part Fred’s memory being defiled by whatever stranger ran into Illyria’s body tonight, part Illyria apparently listening intently on conversations Wesley’s had with Gunn and Angel about bad choices made in sexual partners. And unintended mentions of Lilah in those conversations, which were totally uncalled for, on Angel’s part.

Definitely a slice of the menagerie assaulting him, was wondering how much of Fred’s life Illyria glanced back on and scrolled through, of however much was left - if that entailed precious private moments, of Fred’s lips against his, or of Gunn inside her - which while upsetting in a peculiar way to Wesley, was probably quite valuable and treasured to Fred, and therefore shouldn’t be something Illyria violates by recalling. Were all therefore most upsetting to think about, because the thought of Illyria looking through Fred’s life like a specimen, a film reel to educate herself with, is such a callous cold dehumanizing thought that it makes Wesley’s stomach churn in revulsion.

Then, when he can pull himself back into reality, outside of his head, back to Illyria’s heavy blue eyes, boring into him and desperate, determined for an answer - it strikes him just how absurd this situation is in general.

Shouldn’t Illyria, oh, perhaps, maybe start off smaller? Like maybe, try for a kiss? Or maybe master, or just learn how to adequately attempt to mimic, the basics of how to give comfort and show friendly pleasantness toward another being, before jumping straight into sleeping with one?

But then, Illyria doesn’t think about these sorts of things. She used to kill hundreds of creatures a day, copulate with multiple tentacles with other beings that likely also were a mess of multiple tentacles and thick skinned godliness. Whatever she knows about humans, beyond killing them, is probably whatever she’s noticed about her new self, or about her new acquaintances.

God, what if she gets pregnant? One mystical pregnancy was enough. Two was beyond awful. Three would most certainly _not_ be the charm.

Could Illyria even get pregnant? Well, she’d caught a flu from Wesley two months ago, when it had been going around, and Gunn had given it first to him.

She’d been so upset, Wesley remembers her sipping her own bowl of soup, sitting on the couch beside him, practically the personification of a frown.

She wouldn’t stop chattering in between pathetic blowings of her nose on tissues, berating the television that Wesley had only been watching because he felt too drained and achy, for once, to even read. Not that he had disagreed with her assessments of the programming. But it took so much energy, just to be in the same room as Illyria. Without a manic amount of partially unhinged obsession, what Wesley was usually running on - but the flu had thoroughly drained that, and so it was beyond exhausting trying to keep up with her.

He’d thoroughly passed out, while she’d ranted and snarled, and had woken up with his head across her shoulder and torso. When he’d finally pulled himself together and looked up at her, she was still quietly impersonating a full body frown, burning holes into the television screen. She hadn’t minded his slip up, he thinks Illyria had only minded that she had been left for several hours to suffer her flu alone, without someone to commiserate about it to.

If Illyria could catch a flu, could she catch a sexually transmitted disease? Just what he needed, an angry god-turning-mortal who needed him to take her into the doctor’s for an awkward checkup, where some stranger would try to touch something she didn’t want them to and get their limbs ripped off for the trouble. Then, Wesley would surely have to answer the door to the police and kindly explain that somehow, there was just a massive mix-up, and he didn’t know anyone at all with blue hair. And Illyria wouldn’t get her treatment, because of the aforementioned doctor-ripping-up, and they’d have to do it all over again by going to another clinic, after even more argument and attempt on Wesley’s part to tell her what to do so that it would go smoothly, where of course she would fail to see the necessity in his advice and fuck it all up in all new and exciting ways.

 

\---

 

From Illyria’s perspective, Wesley was just being unbearably slow and quiet and stiflingly human right now. Just staring at her and twisting minutely, awkwardly, while flapping his mouth half-heartedly opened and closed, trying to come up with something to say. And after all the effort too, of her trying to start things off by explaining to him in what she felt was a thorough way, all in order to avoid confusing him. Which apparently had not been avoided after all.

Finally, his mind found some trail to push headfirst into. “You want to go straight to sex? Your first attempt at interpersonal activities that might border on affection, when you can’t even manage consoling someone after accidentally hitting them across a room, and you want to try at sex?”

She looked unbearably firm, eyes boring into him. Like she was trying to eviscerate with her mind, or mold the impervious object that was him into a something more placating, perhaps him on his hands and knees like good normal humans ought to be to her, worshiping.

To be fair, he could imagine being that mad if someone berated him for what he was choosing to do with his own body. And, he could even understand that probably a part of his exasperation had to do with whose body it was she was involving, and that really, he had no right to have any say over it. The person who it belonged to was gone. It was Illyria’s body now. She could do whatever she wanted with it. He was being pig headed, a touch. Maybe a huge heaping more than a touch.

In a way, he should be rather glad she was going out with slayers, intending to pick out some human, instead of plowing past regular sex, straight and right into complicated-morally demon sex while she was technically a part of the whole champion-for-good crowd. Also, the sheer potential difference in biological dynamics, if it were non-human, and questions she might have after, for Wesley, of what the appropriate sensations and feelings were meant to be - this could be infinitely worse. He reigned himself in, rambling would get them nowhere helpful.

Wesley had to save his energy for the inevitable fight later, he had to remember that. “You can do what you want, of course,” he backpedaled, sounding quite level and certain, if he were asked to judge his own performance.

Illyria seemed willing to accept it as an apology for being an obstacle to her desire to get ready swiftly, at least. As inadequate as it probably was.

“I just - I didn’t expect that.”

She looked exasperated with his human vagueness, and put a hand on her hip - something she’d seen Faith do around him, around many people in this house actually. Illyria did it much more stiffly, like she was holding her arm prisoner, a guillotine pulled to it’s precipice, waiting to crash downward, or in her case outward, and release the pent up force.

She might have sighed, if she were someone else. “So, this outfit will be sufficient for the task? Is it ideal for attracting someone?”

One step at a time. Preparation, preparation, preparation - Wesley can remember muttering those words like a mantra to himself, too many times to recall without it being embarrassing, always embarrassing, how that word defined how he attempted to do everything. And still, it failed.

All the preparation in the world, and you’re never really ready for your lover’s killer to look at you in a skin hugging silk piece that’s basically the same as lingerie, furiously staring with icy blues into what feels like your very soul, demanding that you help her prepare to lose her metaphorical virginity in this new life of her’s she’s got, all for the price of the purest most-good thing in this world leaving it.

No. You certainly never are prepared enough. For anything, really.

“Yes. It’s fine. Although,” he pointedly trailed his gaze down her legs, those very familiar legs, now with dustings of greyish blue discoloring the once beautiful skin, and settled on her animal print covered feet, “you may want to take off those socks. Maybe wear tights instead, or just leave your legs bare.”

“What is wrong with the socks? The one made of green light owns these socks, they are nice. They are warm.”

“They’re fine. They’re just not especially, sexy, is all.”

Silence, as Illyria mulls over if she thinks Wesley’s advice is worth much at all. Then, “Sexy is a stupid word. It sounds so inadequate.”

“Yes, it does. Quite inadequate.” If there was any sarcasm laced in a hint of his voice, he was too lost in the strange moment to notice it, and Illyria apparently was too pleased he was going back towards agreement with her rather than contradiction.

She reached down and stripped off the socks, tucked them into each other, and threw them toward a wall. She loves throwing things at walls.

Wesley’s got the bruises to show for it. As does Spike. And Andrew now, and Faith. And Gunn - actually, Gunn by some miracle has avoided such occurrence. Angel, has not. Illyria threw him into the wall of a mausoleum yesterday, in fact, because he was between her and a vampire she was intent on slaying, and Angel wasn’t moving fast enough, so she hurled him out of her way.

“Now, do I look reasonably alluring?” Illyria caught his gaze again, expectant.

She didn’t mean to. Wesley knows, really genuinely knows, Illyria didn’t mean to make him think of Fred. But she did, because he can’t help it. She’s right in front of him, looking in a way no one has a right to look anymore, not even a little, because it’s just a shadow. Because really, she’s gone. And of course to Wesley, and Gunn, and Angel, and anyone who ever knew Fred, Illyria looks like a dream. A beautiful, radiant dream that has hollowed out and become a nightmare.

Alluring? It depends on who you ask. On what their definition of the word is.

There is some part, some tiny horrible thing inside Wesley, that finds Illyria seductive and terrible. That sees a potential lie, inches from him, that would gladly embrace him and suffocate him within it. Within the lie.

He sees the truth, Illyria the god-king trapped and lost, herself in a new world, who didn’t ask to look like this and be this reminder of a person lost. Illyria who makes him remember the person lost, and makes him want to pretend she’s still here, even when he says that’s not what he wants. Even though Illyria knows it’s not what either of them do.

He knows he should move forward, the past is unchangeable. Illyria can’t change it. At least, not anymore.

Wesley thinks, the way she looks at him sometimes, like he’s something she might value, that she doesn’t want to fall back into some old clutched memory anyway. She wants to experience, to be whoever it is she is now, and she wants to be seen. Be her. Wesley can’t see her, Illyria the person, if he’s too busy stuck in time.

Illyria wants him to see her. That’s why she’s always looking right into him, unrelenting.

Maybe she’s hoping he’ll make an attempt to see her back.

 

\---

 

Wesley is so unbearably human. At least, he’s calm right now. Sometimes, he is the antithesis of calm and Illyria is never quite sure how to handle it, because with anyone else she might fight them into submission or else leave them to rot, but him? He would do her the service of neither, and just continue to relentlessly exist in defiance to her.

That’s his thing. The aspect about him that makes him stand out to her.

It is nice, at least, that his ruthlessness is also targeted at most other people as well, when he deems it necessary. She feels like if she can figure out the minutiae of how he does it, she can will people to obey her or fall to her the way he does. With simple words and hard stares and well placed singular attacks, which are not brutal on their own, but because he simply aims them well. And because his enemies rarely seem to see them coming.

Once her strength wanes completely - if that is the route it is headed, which seems more likely each day - she will cherish the ability to still be able to vanquish foes with ease. And that will be thanks to what she is learning now, hopefully.

The silk dress feels nice against her skin. She lets her flesh soften and warm, so that the sensation is more prevalent against it. Wesley is almost useless.

“Wesley.” She thinks, the more she speaks to him, the less weight her voice carries to command his attention.

Despite the weight it ought to have - most certainly does have. The weight is certainly enough to draw Gunn’s worried eyes in her periphery, focused in on them and wound up in case he has to come over and help remind Illyria, for the upteenth time, to not hurt humans.

The human Andrew is waffling by the stairs, maybe he had planned to ask to accompany them, and was on the move to make the request to Faith. But upon her small stature impressing wrath with her gaze upon Wesley, the boy had halted his stride and remained in the pathway, with slightly braver young slayers weaving past him in both directions. Braver, but still, the girls were avoiding the living room, cutting from the stairway to the kitchen to the bathroom, eager to avoid the little bubble Illyria had carved out.

But of course, Wesley didn’t care.

Infuriating fool.

He was crossing his arms now, more nonchalant than Gunn but somewhat a mirror of the other man’s posture, and then Wesley leaned back against the mantle on the wall he stood by.

“Do we have to have the sex talk?”

This blathering idiot. Illyria wonders if there’s even a single human worthy of being her guide, or even her subject. That imbecile Wesley shot certainly hadn’t been anywhere close to worthy, Illyria is glad of his death.

Wesley was hanging onto relevance by a thread. Surely there had to be better specimens than him, somewhere out there.

Surely.

The idea of someone new, someone strange, made her skin crawl uncomfortably, noticeably. Unfamiliar was unpleasant, and Wesley felt real. Grounded. The only thing that was stable in this godforsaken universe. The pillar that existed when she arrived, and would continue to exist within her life for better or worse. Stable.

She liked stability. It was the closest thing to how she’d felt at home, before this rebirth, before the slumber, back when she knew the scores and the realms and who was in charge. When she knew what was what, because she decided it.

Now she’d decided on Wesley. Baffling and small and insignificant, but hers. A solid foundation around which to establish the definition of normality in her new life.

Gunn sometimes muttered that Wesley was anything but normal, when he was certain the other human could not hear. Illyria suspected that Gunn’s assessment had something to do with the fact Wesley had stabbed him, and maybe also because Wesley sometimes shot other humans. And certainly, that violates the big important major rule they all keep insisting is the bedrock of normal behavior - don’t hurt humans.

 

\---

 

They’re at the club, and Wesley finds himself sipping his drink, absently unsure why he even let himself come, leaning closer to Gunn than he probably should.

But Charles feels safe, and familiar, and is letting him. So Wesley stays turned just a bit too toward him, watching him out of the corner of his eye. He wonders if Charles will try to flirt with someone tonight.

He follows Charles’ gaze, and it ends at Illyria, because of course it does.

At some point between the older slayers and Gunn and Wesley ordering drinks, and people drifting off to dance, some slayer had given Illyria some adequately pale cover-up and delicately covered the more noticeably blue patches of skin on her face.

Illyria was out on the dance floor now, drifting around Faith in perfect movements, the both of them looking ethereal, too much. But in a just-human-enough sort of way. No doubt it added to their allure. One of these days, Wesley might actually forget to think of Fred when he looks at Illyria, if only for an instant. He isn't sure if that's worse, or better.

Illyria was dancing like a siren again, as if she’d always known how to do this - better than Fred could -  mimicking Faith’s movements, shadowing them and then doing them better, because she had less exhaustion building up and weighing down her actions. She was holding the curve of Faith’s back, her hand slipping down and touching obscenely. Illyria was gripping like Faith belonged to her. Illyria treated most things that way.

It was hard to look away.

Wesley felt like he should, so he made himself, and noticed Charles pulling his own eyes away soon after. They looked at each other, and then Charles broke the unsteady tension - that barely there tinge they always had around each other now - and turned around to order another drink.

Wesley let himself follow Gunn’s body, turning too.

As they waited for the drink, Gunn sighed. “It’s so hard. Not seeing her.”

“I know.”

The bartender handed Gunn his order, then turned to Angel - a few feet away, a little out of place, like always - and asked him if he wanted anything new. Wesley could imagine, some time in the past, some soulless Angel, maybe smirking, using that as an invite to ask for the woman’s blood.

Wesley remembers Angel drinking from his arm. He shakes himself out of the thought.

“In a way, I’m glad - it’s you. That took the job up. Of handling her.”

Wesley doesn’t need to say ‘I know’ again. He just avoids the pull he feels, to look at Gunn directly again. That won’t lead anywhere good. He’ll just see the same thing he often sees there, as of late - a sort of mirror of himself.

Guilt. Grief. Conflict. A lot of words they don’t have the pride or skill to say to each other. That they probably wouldn’t know how to say.

Well, maybe Gunn would know how to say them. But Wesley isn’t sure he could handle the conversation. He’d probably cry. Or try to kill someone - Gunn, or himself, or something. Obviously it was a scenario he wasn’t up to coping with yet, he could be that self aware, at least.

Wesley saw Faith out of the corner of his eye, coming over, first throwing an uninvited arm over Angel’s shoulder, then dragging the both of them toward Gunn and Wesley.

“Hey boys. Aren’t ya gonna come out and dance with us? Unlike Angel, our bites aren’t lethal, just sexy. Well, mostly.”

Wesley could practically feel Illyria, before he saw her, drifting over in Faith’s wake.

Gunn smiled, always so good at being charismatic in new situations, and Faith was letting herself drift over to them instead. First to feel up Gunn’s arms, smiling like she had half a mind to scoop him up for herself, then throwing herself around Wesley’s shoulders as a stand in for Angel, who she was looking at now steadily.

“Hey, if you’re not doing anything, you mind calling and checking in with Andrew for me?” She says to Angel, before adding, “Could you also scout around the building real quick? I don’t sense any vamps, but better safe than sorry.”

Wesley’s sort of, deliriously and unearned, overwhelmed with giddy satisfaction that Faith is thinking about consequences and safety. About preparedness. She’s come such a long way.

No thanks to him, really, he doesn’t have any right to be as proud of her as he is. It’s really all her doing. She’s become this leader she is, all on her own. For the most part. It’s really in spite of people like him.

He can’t help but let his free hand drift to hold her back, wanting to just pretend for a moment that they are actually good friends. He doesn’t feel right, doing this with Gunn anymore. He might as well do it with someone.

Angel looks like he’s going to say something, then nods instead, heading for the exit. Faith is grinning, all teeth, and she’s probably pretty proud herself, that old holier-than-thous like Angel just follow her orders without nagging. She’s getting more like Buffy everyday.

He probably shouldn’t mention that out loud. “So you taking someone home tonight?” Gunn asks Faith, trying to be conversational.

Faith squeezes Wesley’s shoulder, tense for a second, but he doesn’t complain. “Unfortunately, I gotta patrol later. I told the girls if they wanna leave, they gotta let me know with who. But I’m pretty much screwed. Or, well, not screwed, tonight. Unless you want some company later, big man.” She leans forward a little, flashing a look with her eyes. And Wesley feels odd, knowing he’s the one being held onto but not the one being wanted.

Not that he’d want that - for her to want him. But it’s just all too like - like _her._ All big sultry gaze for Gunn, while Wesley hangs on the sidelines, just glad for the friendship. It doesn’t even make him bitter, really, anymore. It’s just so sad.

He’s never going to feel that again. Not with Fred. When Wesley lets himself glance at Gunn, maybe to try and find some humor in Gunn being put off guard, instead he just sees a mirror. Gunn’s sad too, brown eyes heavy, remembering too. It’s all too familiar, fighting over the girl who’s gone.

Faith, thankfully, doesn’t notice. Probably wouldn’t know what to even look for.

But then Illyria is pushing through, to the middle, and before Wesley can even get hit by how unbearable it is, seeing her right just _then,_ Illyria is rather forcefully tugging Faith off of Wesley.

Wesley’s shoulder hurts, it’s so sudden. “Hey, hey, calm down girl. What’s up?” Faith asks, trying to deescalate.

And again, that unearned pride at how much Faith’s grown dances around inside him.

“I thought you were dancing with me. Why did you stop?”

Oh no. Wesley knows that tone. “I was just checking in on the boys, hun.”

Illyria’s eyes are unblinking, fathomless. She shouldn’t be talking that way with people who aren’t Wesley. Or well, even him really. “Do not call me hun.”

“Okay, chill.” Faith is still working at chill, and Wesley’s rather reassured she’s gotten so good at it. It must be all the slayer-sitting she’s been doing as of late, with all those girls in training. Illyria is clutching onto Faith’s wrist then, iron grip like she does to Wesley - and he knows how much that hurts, how it threatens cracking bone, if you don’t just go along with it. At least, it does on a normal human.

Faith seems to fight it, for a second, before just letting Illyria drag her back to the dance floor. “Rain check,” she mutters, maybe at Gunn, as she goes.

Oh no.

Gunn looks bemused as he follows them with his eyes, like Wesley does. Wesley knows that behavior, on Illyria. That’s her ‘I’m in control and you will obey me’ mood. Thankfully, it doesn’t do much for Wesley, seeing as he doesn’t mind getting tortured or nearly killed if he just ignores it.

Faith though - that’s a blowout Wesley doesn’t want to deal with. Faith probably won’t put up with it.

 

\---

 

Faith is nearly, nearly worthy. Worthy enough to fuck, Illyria supposes. At least, she seems like she’d be good at it. Illyria has enough impressions left, in the ghosts in her mind, to know when someone handles a body like they know how to make it feel good. Faith pressing up against her, feels good.

Faith’s hands slipping into her hair, tugging lightly, ghosting against the skin of her neck, her back - enticing. Illyria wants to claw into her, make her moan and beg, make Faith touch her more, harder, relentlessly.

But Faith spins from grinding against Illyria, just so sweetly - and shifts toward a man dancing in their space, throwing her arms around him, sliding against his torso, his crotch.

Illyria can’t have that. Faith is hers. Illyria yanks Faith back, toward her, against her, lips pressing in on Faith’s neck above the leather of her shirt. And Faith is sliding with her, like it’s what she wants. But then she’s reaching out, dragging another body in close, to her front again, so Illyria spins her - Faith’s legs clumsy as she catches up, leaning against her.

Illyria lets her hands press under Faith’s clothes, to the warm skin underneath. But Faith is slipping back, gentle hands grasping Illyria’s arms in contradiction to the distance growing between the rest of their bodies.

Illyria doesn’t understand. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. She lets her mind flash, to fleeting imprints - _a game_ , that’s what Fred would categorize this. Fred didn’t like playing games. The human would not have put up flirting with someone who wasn’t sure they wanted to flirt back.

She would have been assertive - had been. Illyria remembers a flash, _a warmth in her chest, nerves lighting up, leaning towards Wesley, trying to capture his lips, him catching her first, finally, knowing, being certain, being there -_ Illyria can’t remember what it looked like, what it felt like, not exactly. But it makes her want Wesley desperately. Just for that - she wants to capture that wonderful singular sensation, of her atoms all on edge and poised, and then lulled and set aflame all at once. It’s a memory burned into her flesh, an ache, it’s what longing might be. Or lust. Some sort of attraction, Illyria is sure.

As Faith puts more subtle distance between them, Illyria thinks this is a similar feeling overtaking her now. Wanting to know, to _connect_ -

She pulls Faith in again, hands on her back, one cradling the woman’s head, trying to recreate the kiss she hardly remembers. But Faith isn’t kissing back, and it’s all wrong, and this isn’t what it’s supposed to feel like at all.

And now she’s feeling frustration bubbling up, like hitting walls, like looking down at earth from the rooftops and the hopelessness overwhelming her with it all, of how small this world is. She kisses harder, tries to possess.

Faith pushes rather forcefully, then. “Illyria. Illyria chill. I’m good.”

None of her words make any sense in the context Illyria is working within. She clutches on tighter, annoyed that Faith pushed her in a moment of distraction. “Why do you not return - don’t you want to touch me?”

Faith looks at her, and it’s a little sad, and it looks a little how Gunn looks at her - like she’s something to pity. It’s infuriating. Now Illyria wants to shove her away.

But that would be counterproductive. “You were flirting with me, touching me, all day. Why do you wish to stop now?”

“Uh, cause we’re on a dance floor?”

Illyria starts dragging them toward a wall. Halfway there, Faith starts using her own strength to stop them. “Illyria, I - Illyria, stop.” She doesn’t say it - it’s unfamiliar, it’s not the casual scolding Wesley uses. It’s infuriating, like she’s that fool Andrew, like she needs gentleness.

Illyria stops, because breaking Faith’s wrists would probably not be constructive in fucking her.

“I - I was just messing around,” Playing, Illyria’s head echoes. “I didn’t mean to lead you on. I’m - I’m not sure you and I doing stuff is a good idea, honestly.”

Illyria wishes for a moment, that her echoes weren’t so fuzzy. Wishes she could compare this disaster to how it’s supposed to go, to learn something, make some effective improvement. But when she thinks of Gunn, or a girl named Hanna in Texas, it's all just sensations, impressions, feelings. Nothing though - no hint of what went right, or how.

Illyria pushes Faith away before she can stop herself. It’s a miracle the woman does not crash to the ground, dislocate a shoulder. Instead she crashes to some bodies behind her and rebounds, looking as pissed as Wesley when he’s hurling accusations at what a murderer she is and she tells him to die, then, if he’s so unhappy. But when the woman steadies herself again, she’s got that look again - that horrible, awful, pitying look. At least, a touch of it.

“You shouldn’t have turned me on then.” Illyria says, accusingly, irritated. Played, runs through her mind again. Shadow of Fred, of Fred’s disappointment, pain, when people played with her. Illyria doesn’t remember the exacts, of being played, but it felt a little like this. Except, less angry. Fred the human surely could not contain the levels of rage she easily summoned. Simply a part of her makeup, her essence.

She wanted to wash the human paint from her face and ravage the club, strew the bodies on the floor, coat the walls in blood. Her acquaintances would not approve.

“Hey, you don’t get to blame people for expectations,” Faith cuts back, as raw as Illyria with her annoyance. Illyria hopes Faith hits her. Then they can fight. Illyria wants to hit something she won’t kill immediately. “I didn’t say I’d do anything with you.”

“But you danced -”

“Yeah, well, that’s how people dance. Doesn’t mean they wanna sleep with you. You got a long way to go if you think that’s how it works.” Then Faith is walking off, rushing maybe, and going out the club entrance. Probably trying to avoid a fight. It is a smart call. Illyria would have broken her spine, given enough time.

She feels her face heat up, but it is not pleasant, it is nothing like the memories she is certain embody some aspect of attraction. This is degrading. Like being human, being trapped. This is awful.

She has half a mind to massacre the bodies in front of her, anyway. Just because it might make her feel something else. Rage outside, instead of this.

Instead, she makes herself stand still and listen to the sounds of the music, the taps of feet on the ground, trying to count them. Her face is still warm, uncomfortable - being mortal in this horrible place is just a long train of unpleasant experiences.

She was a fool to think finding something enjoyable in this prison would be so easy. Of course it wouldn’t.

Eventually, she doesn’t feel quite so possessed with the need to rip apart anything she touches. When she looks up, Faith is still absent, but Gunn and Wesley are watching her.

Gunn has that horrible, pitying expression. Like he’s sorry for her, as much as he probably hates her too, in the way Wesley does.

Wesley hardly ever looks at her so sympathetically - she is his villain, the monster he blames. He refuses to give her the opening. He is, thankfully, now just looking with a twist in his mouth and the hang of his head. Obviously wondering if there is some conundrum he must attempt to correct in his own failing, insufficient way.

She has no room in her for kindness, for sympathy, in this instance. She lets her body morph to that familiar form, all soft brown curls and doe eyes, and lets her eyes pull away from them and scan the room again.

Surely, some other human will suffice for company. Maybe not worthy, but good enough at making her feel sexually aroused to bother tolerating. Humans are all so ugly. It’s hard to even tell what body would be considered appropriate. Skill is even harder to judge, without touching first. And she might just set them off, like Faith. The temptation to just walk up, spilling sweet southern drawl and playing innocent dances on her mind, just shy of intoxicating.

More intoxicating is the palpable pain she can sense even here, without looking. Gunn’s eyes glued to her, memorizing, desperate and horrified all at once.

That’s how people should always look at her. They used to, back home. Always desperate for her, beyond terrified, in vicious awe. Illyria could walk up to him, right now, take his face in her hands and have him.

He wouldn’t know what to do.

When she does eventually look back, Charles Gunn does not disappoint. He is more broken then she imagined, longing as plain and palpable as her prison is limiting. She can’t help the ghost of a smile. This is what he gets, for daring to feel sorry for her.

She comes to join them, and Wesley looks infuriated.

He would have never looked at Winifred Burkle with such hatred, surely.

It’s tempting to turn back, become herself - or what’s left of her, in this body. Not that she can’t handle the screaming, the anger. It’s the pain - and she -

It's a whole different kind of anger, washing inside her now, that pain she can’t even see, that Wesley won’t even show, is motivating her to consider anything at all.

As she gets within grabbing distance, Gunn looks away, horror winning out. He is frozen like some shell of a man, and Illyria can admit to herself that the pain that is palpable is a little bit - it gets to her. In a way it didn’t used to.

She doesn’t want to hurt these people. At some point, that became true, and she is reminded of it now. She decides to stop, blue curling out, illusion washing away. Illyria can’t help looking away too, like Gunn’s pain is hers.

Wesley doesn’t even get to his scolding tone, she’s beaten him too it, internally. So she just feels that fury, a radiant dangerous sun exploding silently beside her.

She lets herself scan the bodies again, quite certain that no one will be satisfying. Perhaps it’s just a bad habit picked up from the idiot people she knows, but there is no energy in her to fight the self-defeating. Illyria is tired of flirting. It’s too much, and she’s tired of getting things too wrong tonight. She probably shouldn’t have angered Faith. Illyria doesn’t yet know how she wants to solve those sorts of conflicts, when they don’t end in violence. And now, she’ll have to address it at some point. That is a problem for later.

Unfortunate. Eventually, Gunn looks back, and it’s a new surge of indescribable things Illyria isn’t sure she can handle after all. So she just pushes it all down, ignores it.

“So, um,” Gunn starts, and Illyria is eager to let him set the mood. “No success yet, huh.”

Illyria says nothing.

“We saw Faith turn you down,” Gunn continues.

“You shouldn’t have pushed her.” Wesley adds, and oh doesn’t he sound vicious. Cold, like a sword through her torso and pushing out the back. He would hit her, he would push her back, if it only worked. But if he tried, she’d just stand there, unaffected as before, and that might just drive him to do something drastic.

Like massacre the club himself.

Well, maybe not. He surely would be against such an action. But Illyria has nothing equivalent to compare the impression to. Illyria decides to say nothing again.

Now Gunn is following her lead.

It is almost unbearable.

She tries to focus on counting the pound of feet on the floor as they rustle and move again. “You don’t need to look like her. You know that.”

Illyria dares to meet Wesley’s eyes, then, and she’s infuriated with herself for caring that there’s pain there. She wants to glory in it, revel in what she can cause, a small breadcrumb of what she used to be able to do - but there’s an ache in her chest that felt hollow and unsteady at Gunn, and now, at Wesley.

She stops herself from saying the thing she knows would hurt.

“I know that,” she says instead.


	2. It's okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illyria makes up with Faith, and jokes with Wesley.

Eventually, Faith comes back into the club, with Angel following behind, a shadow. She is his commander, at present. The woman comes up to the group of them as if nothing remiss has occurred, same overly large smile flashed at all of them.

She slides her body against the counter of the bar, hollers her loud voice at the bartender and demands a round of shots, still baring that brilliantly wide smile. Illyria wonders if the smile is a lie - a carefully made mask, as easy for Faith to call up as Fred’s visage is to Illyria. A comfortable shield to hide behind, because while it’s on, everything is so simple.

Just do as the disguise would have done, use the tones and body gestures the form falls itself into. All old instincts, ingrained into the body, as easy as breathing.

Illyria thinks she understands, sees in Faith a strange familiarity, as the woman turns her body toward them, subtly using Angel’s body as a partial barrier between the slayer and Illyria. It is almost uncomfortable, to see something of herself in this human.

And yet the pull, the wish to fall into the same disguise, protect herself as well as the slayer is doing, surges up like a tantalizing dream, lulling her. But she can’t hide within Fred - she’ll hurt everyone, if she does. Even if it hurts her more, to stay bare right now.

Illyria decides, that if she’s going to feel uncomfortable anyway, she might as well keep embracing these unpleasant feelings. They’re less palatable than rage, and yet - she thinks having to look at Gunn and Wesley, any longer, knowing she’s the source of this same kind of unpleasant hollow heaviness, would be even less tolerable.

They don’t understand how difficult it is, being in this world. Where everyone is weak, and selfish, and lies. Where there is gravity and an atmosphere and a weakness growing in her molecules, keeping her from springing away and off to other planets, other realities. She is stuck in each moment, without any chance to return and change it. There are no more experiments, every actions is forever permanent, time pressing on her instead of the other way around.

Her world is empty, dead. She’s not even herself, anymore. Everything is gone.

This horrible, small, twisted existence is all that remains.

Wesley surely is still furious, his body all tense muscles, his feelings practically a palpable radius around him, thick like the armor she used to don in another life. She chooses to ignore it.

Illyria subtly slides half behind him, invading his space as she mirrors Faith’s own defensive position. The urge to grab the human, feel something familiar and soft and at least stable - not pleasant or unpleasant, not drifting and out of control like this spiral of an uncomfortable moment - itches at the tips of her fingers. She ignores it.

“I called Robin. He’s going to the house for me, to make sure everyone else stays safe - cause knowing them, even with everything in the fucking world to defend them, and the damn job to, they’d probably still try to screw it up.”

Illyria doesn’t know who Robin is. Out of the corner of her eye, Gunn and Wesley’s lack of recognition, clouded glances at the slayer, confirm that this is acceptable. “I am sorry, Faith.”

Faith glances directly at her, now - and it was a shield, because this look is hesitant, almost unwilling to meet her, where Faith certainly never acts as if she fears confronting anything. It is all an act, a lie. The woman curls her lips in a smile, eyes just slightly dancing away, to the corner of Illyria’s face, like Wesley when he’s trying not to see _her_.

Illyria doesn’t give her the chance to speak, to drag out this illusion. “I should have - stopped touching you, when you asked. I will not do it again.”  

She supposes the directness was actually successful, in this particular instance. Whereas so often directness just leads to sudden anger when she’s around her usual company. Part of her wants to glance over to Angel, measure his reaction instead of Faith’s to see if it’s more familiar. But then she’d be breaking contact with Faith - and Illyria backs down from nothing.

At least, that’s the lie she wants to tell herself.

Faith does put down her act, now, eyes wide as the white of them shimmer under the lights, pinpointing themselves at Illyria. “I - It’s not like I’m never interested, trust me, you’re cute, it’s just -” Faith’s words seem to stumble out ahead of her, because suddenly her lips are tightening together, trying to repress. Faith’s eyes fall to Illyria’s breasts, to the cleavage above the hem of her dress. Illyria keeps herself from from reacting, analyzing. Then they’d all know she’s lost, so she refuses to tilt her head, to contemplate.

Faith’s lips move again before her eyes do. “Anyway, I got a lot on my plate right now. Glad you get that.” Then Faith’s finally pulling her eyes up, and that lie, that too large too brilliant smile is fully forced at Illyria.

Faith is laughing, and Illyria wonders if the lie is as obvious to everyone else. Not for the first time - unfortunately, for what seems like an endless number - Illyria wonders how the people in this world decide which lies to go along with, and which ones to reject. Wesley’s answers on the topic have been rather contradictory, and he’s refused to elaborate any clearer. Angel and Gunn, meanwhile, have simply hesitated to engage the mystery at all.

Illyria suspects most people just give into the lie. It’s just that the human Wesley is a masochist. Or perhaps the others are. She cannot tell.

To lie. To face the truth. Both are painful. There is no good choice, in this world.

Again, she wants to reach out, hold onto Wesley, as much as it will probably cause him pain. Because that agony he wears around her is familiar, and in a horrible way it reminds her of home. He wore it, the day she realized there was no going back.

It is like the tale she heard, of creatures before her, a great, terrible nightmare - who always came back to the same day. Over, and over, with no thought or distinction to the beings it trapped within. Because the things beyond nightmares were being birthed, infiltrating and swarming over the world, invading and conquering it. And the nightmare - the oldest, the truest - was losing its domain. With nothing left to be done, except when it caught others in it’s waning dream. Eventually, it knew the inevitable was here.

And so it replayed, again and again, that most terrifying dream. Even though the dream was fading, losing power as each moment passed. Because it was the nightmare’s first creation, and even in it’s failing, there was something consoling about it one day being the nightmare’s last.

If Illyria had to be born in agony, then in agony she would make her home, bury herself in it. Conquer and take control of the moment that was being ripped from her, anew, each and every day.

Faith touches Illyria’s shoulder, same soft squeeze as she’d done on the dance floor, and like magic the group has uncoiled - is no longer angry, terrified, on edge. Faith lets go and squeezes Wesley’s arm instead - the one Illyria had wished to grasp - and holds it like it belongs to her.

Hypocrites. All of them. “Loosen up, dude. You need another shot. All of you do.” Then, Faith is forcefully nudging them all to the row of small glasses she’d demanded of the employee here, and all of the men are reaching out for them, resigned. There is the heat again, uncomfortable, at the bottom of the hollow inside her, that urges her not to resign to this the way they do.

Faith can force people to her will, but when Illyria does it, she’s scolded. And worse, these people think they have the right to.

But Wesley, once his arm is free, grabs an extra glass and puts it into Illyria’s hand. His fingers are forceful, ordering her - just like Faith is ordering everyone, subtle. But she knows, it’s all a lie. All for him. He can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to. So she tolerates it.

And his fingers gentle, smooth over hers, some silent gesture to urge her to join them and help maintain this new equilibrium. Then he’s letting go, eyes meeting hers, all gentle softness and the hint of a glisten. Illyria knows what she did hurt them - she shouldn’t have -

She wishes they would try to understand how hard this is. How much hiding the familiar helps. That maybe she’d like to use this body to help herself, the way she knows they use it to console themselves, when they’re delirious. When they’re desperate to pretend they didn’t lose it all. Lose her.

But, Illyria supposes, humans cannot be expected to comprehend a god.

Wesley is looking at her, at least. There is nothing else on his mind. Just Illyria.

Just pleading her to be understanding.

She drinks her shot down when the rest of them do, and enjoys the burn. It’s stronger than water, then the buzz of sugar in coffee. It’s barely anything. But it cuts through the ever present dull of agony, just a little. A single blade of grass blowing in the gentlest of wind. It’s not enough to stir the field, nowhere close.

But it’s something.

Wesley is reaching out, one of his arms behind her now, like he’d held Faith earlier. She is aware he is pulling her, in his weak human way, as gentle as that dream of wind. Illyria lets him, anyway. He is warm, and he is ordering them both a second drink.

Illyria looks around the bar again, all of the bodies she has no interest in.

She wonders if she can even feel it, the euphoria Fred’s ghost hints that this body can feel. Or if nothing will cut through the heavy haze of pain. Illyria glances up at Wesley, his face close, a small cut from a razor he handled clumsily on the underside of his jaw.

His pain seems to have passed. Her lips tilt, try to curve upward, and she forces them down, but acknowledges that her muscles wanted to alter. She will have time to appreciate the moment later. It is rare she even catches it, notices when her body hints at what she’s living through. Usually she is too blind with everything being too much, and too small.

Leaning against Wesley - the way Faith is leaning against Angel - somehow makes the small world seem less overwhelming. It is small, but it is focused on this simple feeling. Heavy weight next to her, stable, present. The rest, like time, is fleeting. But there will be this island to return to.

Perhaps this is why Faith is always touching. Grabbing Wesley, squeezing Gunn, hugging the light that is Dawn. Dragging the bodies in the club. Because it is something to return to, something simple.

“Wesley, who else in this place would you consider an acceptable partner?”

Of course, he hesitates to answer.

It makes the hollow of her insides feel a little less heavy. Illyria thinks, Wesley hasn’t caught onto her jokes, yet.

This one, at least, is less cruel than the one she shouldn’t have played on Gunn.

“Whoever you want.” He gulps his drink, eyeing the crowd and not really looking at any of them. They mean nothing.

All that really matters, is that Wesley is noticing her. Unbearably, perhaps, as he’s tensing again. But he isn’t lost in a lie. That’s enough, right now.

It makes her not want to get lost either. She lets herself smile, accidentally meets Gunn’s eyes, and belatedly wonders if the smile he sees is her, or a mistaken image of the ghost that’s always plaguing her. It is unfair, that smiles can be so dangerous. They feel so - good, when they’re real.

Suddenly this place is too much. She just wants to be alone. Where she can feel heavy and weak and collapse on the ground, and no one who matters will notice her weakness. Where when she wakes, Wesley will still be collapsed, and so there will be no one to witness her vulnerability. And if he does, it does not matter. He already has.

He already knows her world has fallen apart. There is no need to avoid being caught in the lie, that she is okay. He will forgive her, for it. Not that she would ever ask.

She never would’ve asked, before. Gods do not ask to be forgiven.

Humanity is hurtling toward her at an alarming rate. What she wouldn’t give, to be able to halt the moments again. Instead, she’s stuck in the lying nightmare that keeps growing smaller and smaller.

Wesley’s arm squeezes her, again, and as his body leans against the bar, she allows herself to lean too. “You don’t have to try again, you know. Might be worth calling it a night.”

“I do not give up,” and her tone is firm, absolute, and she feels like herself again.

“Fine then, go try again.” Just as absolute, like her own inner conscious driving her forward. People do not give up, in this world. They don’t hide in their lies as their world collapses around them - at least, not forever. Unlike the nightmare, they push out into the new, invaded world. They try to take it back.

Even when it’s futile. “Eventually, something feels good. Something will work. There will be something worth experiencing, in this place.” She is half talking to herself, but her voice still rings loud, lips near Wesley’s ears. Gunn and Faith are regarding her oddly.

Let them.

She walks off, determined to figure out what’s so nice about connecting with another person.

 

\---

 

It doesn’t work out, tonight.

She approaches a man, and he says he only likes other men. She is perplexed, and annoyed, and struts toward Wesley to make him explain this conundrum. He is in the middle of the room, Faith in his arms - or maybe he is trapped in hers, and it’s infuriating that Faith is allowed to possess him, but when Illyria does the same thing, it’s _wrong_ \- and Illyria doesn’t care.

She pushes her way through the crowd - gentle, weaving, the way Wesley tries to lead her when she’s cooperating - and when she gets to them, Faith is grinding against him. He’s gently pulling away, the way Faith was pulling away from her a half hour ago. Illyria does not understand why Faith keeps dancing.

But before she can reach out and yank her human apart, distance has subtly fallen between them, and Faith glances her eyes open in the middle of another brilliant smile. Illyria knows she’s seen, suspects Faith elegantly drifting off into the bodies in front of her, is driven by that.

“Wesley.” He jolts, then stares at her, body becoming just as frozen and solid as hers, two resolute pillars, in the middle of the dance floor.

He waits, and Illyria is glad he does not cross his arms. That would be rude.

“I asked a man to take me home,” despite Wesley’s callous words earlier, it makes his expression melt into something brighter, more uncertain, “He said he was sorry, but he was only interested in men.”

Those features remain loosened, but instead of some cousin of fear, it’s leisure they fall into.

“You said women were the superior gender. You said I was lucky this was the form I was stuck in. Because I had more nerve endings, and was more beautiful, and could orgasm more times consecutively -”

“What’s your point?” He cuts her off now, grabbing her arm and waist and getting them off toward a less occupied corner of the room.

“Well if I am so fortunate in the body I have obtained, then why is it a cause of rejection?”

He knows. She can tell, he knows, in the way his eyes squint, his body slouches, the urgency leaving. Wesley knows she is making a tirade out of nothing. They talked about human sexuality fourteen days ago, and then again five days ago, and even this afternoon. She knows that sexualities vary depending on the person. He’s caught her complaining, for the sake of it.

For his sake, he ought to just allow her. Illyria has put up with an unreasonable number of nights, of Wesley blathering about things that will never be changed. Surely he can take it back in kind.

Illyria could have decapitated him, or ripped out his tongue, or taken away some rare thing in his life he didn’t complain about being wrong. But she’d tolerated him instead. It was unduly kind.

“Suppose it’s just bad luck, tonight,” he says.

“Well,” Illyria starts - she can tell there is a laugh about to bubble up, the way Wesley’s chest is rising, his voice cutting off - “You could proposition him.”

It works, his laugh is snatched away. She wants to smile again. She lets herself, why not.

“Faith says having sex improves the mood. Your mood is so habitually awful, surely you should attempt to alleviate it.”

Wesley is trying, quite hard, not to gawp. His lips are pressed in a tight line, and his eyes keep tensing, trying to stare her down. He will not win. Illyria can go hours without blinking. Humans cannot. She waits.

“I don’t think -”

“You are attracted to Gunn, and Angel, a man should be sufficient -”

“That’s not how it works, Illyria -”

“That is the man,” Illyria grabs hold of Wesley’s body in one arm, delighting in the fact she is getting away with manhandling him like the slayer Faith and the vampire Angel are allowed, and points with her other arm. Wesley is quickly grabbing that one, trying desperately, impossibly, to force it back down. “Do you find him satisfactory?”

Wesley is still clinging to her arm, even though he knows his pitiful muscles have no hope of stopping her. “He’s not my type,” Wesley hisses quickly, still foolishly pulling at her.

“Why not? His body is quite muscular. It is why I approached him.” The warm mirth of giggling is bubbling up inside her chest - and there is some part of her curious to indulge it. She keeps it suppressed.

Wesley is swinging in front of her now, maybe to make her pointing less obvious. Illyria uses it as an excuse to grab hold of his shoulder, leans on him. He is warm, as always - and somewhat sweaty from alcohol, also rather familiar. “I don’t like his face. It’s not - it’s not cute to me. Stop.”

“None of your faces are ‘cute’ to me.”

“I’m sure.” Now he’s being snarky.

She probably is too. They could dance right now. It sort of feels like they’re dancing. If only they were swaying a bit more.

“Fine, perhaps another -”

“No, Illyria.” It’s his usual, familiar, scold. But edgy, weak and there’s a higher pitched whine hiding somewhere within it, no doubt because he isn’t entirely sober. Or angry, either.

She can’t help that her smile grows.

He’s suddenly collapsing into her too, leaning back, and his eyes are looking into her. Not through her, not knives or swords, just in. His hands are heavy - and yet nothing, compared to her - and they land on her shoulders, just resting, sliding, clumsy.

“Want to dance?” She says, because he has discovered her rouse, and that is okay.

His eyes close, a small moment, where Illyria feels the hollow opening up inside her - but then he’s looking at her again, just her. Just Illyria. Nothing beyond that, no lies.

“I think I’m sick of dancing, to be honest.”

“Then we can just rest.”

He nods, absent, letting himself notice her, just Illyria, for a little longer. Illyria pretends they’re alone, pretends she’s allowed to be vulnerable, where no one can think to use it against her. No one who matters, anyway.

They’re both sort of drifting back to the bar, then. Toward Gunn, and Angel, and one of the periphery slayers who’s staring at Angel in odd wonder. Illyria isn’t sure who decided they’d move first, but it doesn’t matter.

She isn’t sure when she started being okay with these people, with them knowing her.

But when they reach the others, everything still feels okay.


End file.
